Setting the Baseline: Growing Over the Summer

It’s Tuesday, and that means the New Year’s holiday is over. And that means once more getting up at five in the morning, writing the blog, and getting ready for work. It still gonna be a short work week, but having two three day–well, three and a half day–holidays in a row is a real hard to put behind us. That’s one of things I don’t like about the end of the year: you have all this time off, and then you go right back to work. No using in or anything like that, just get to it.

And here I am already trying to figure out what I’m going to wear this morning. The struggle is real.

I added up my numbers from Friday through yesterday and figured out that I wrote four thousand, three hundred, and thirty words total. If you doing the math that’s just a little over a thousand a day, and it’s been a while since I’ve had a thousand day average like that. Though I think it’s the same thing when I first got my Dragon software, so maybe I’m just spacing out a little. But it is kind of nice to add up your numbers and realize you are back to doing close to or just over a thousand words are every day and it doesn’t feel like a struggle. Because when you feel as if you have to force the words out of you, that’s when writing stops being fun.

Except that as writers we all go through that period of time where does feel like a struggle, then you going to do that with you have voice actuated writing software or not. I mean, there’s times when I feel like that still and when I do, I just turn off Dragon and sit down and watch a little TV. But don’t think I’m wasting my time: over the holidays I’ve been zipping through the first couple of seasons of Justified, and anytime you’re dealing with characters and plot lines created by Elmore Leonard, I consider it a learning experience.

Speaking of experience, what’s going on in the hospital?

We’ve seen that Helena didn’t get her legs grown–or should I say, she didn’t get them grown all the way back?

The following excerpts from The Foundation Chronicles, Book Three: C For Continuing, copyright 2016, 2017 by Cassidy Frazee)

Helena smirked. “That was the plan, but the reality is they were only able to grow so much. When you’re dealing with a massive reconstruction like growing two legs, things don’t always go according to plan, even when you are using magic and technology.”

“It has to do with all that dark energy she’s got running through her system.” Coraline didn’t take her eyes off the monitor as she spoke. “Apparently when you’re a bad ass sorceress like Helena, the regrowth tanks have to be recalibrated so they aren’t detecting all that internal dark energy as abnormalities in the body.”

“It kept mucking things up the first time I went in.” Helena stretched out her right leg flexing the muscle in her thigh. “So I had to go home while they recalibrated the regrowth tank for my body. That was why I had to go back a second time, so they could continue growing everything from the bottom of my thighs down to the top of my calves.” She tapped her hands on her kneecaps. “It didn’t get everything grown, but I bloody well got knees again. First time in twelve years.”

It seems that magic and technology are not always a perfect thing, and sometimes your body doesn’t do exactly what the doctor thinks is going to be allowed. Of course Helena went to a place that deals with Guardians, but the equipment just wasn’t prepared for the total amount of dark energy that she has residing in her body. This is why it was hinted at the beginning of this novel that she had to make two trips to the hospital over the summer, with the end result being she got all her thighs and her knees back and should get her calves, ankles, and feet back the next time she goes in.

I’m sure this’ll make the kids wonder if whenever they’re having a medical procedure, things are constantly getting adjusted for them as well. Probably not yet: neither of them are quite the Sorceress From Hell that Helena is, but give it time. It may not be long before Coraline has them coming into the hospital at the start of the school year so she can recalibrate her equipment just in case they need a little something regrown.

This is the first time that it’s hinted that having all this dark energy in your body can throw stuff off. Maybe other witches consensus in the sorceress after they’ve been around a while, and it’s what makes them nervous. We’ll see. At least my kids don’t have to worry about dating outside their own magical group–and given that Erywin is about as non-sorceress as you get, being associated with her Dark Witch doesn’t seem to bother her at all.

Now that Coraline is finished with Helena, she moves on to my kids–but only after one final Helena update:

Annie stepped into the bay so she could lean over and grasp Helena’s hand. “I’m so happy for you. I’m glad at least this much is complete.”

Kerry stayed about a step behind Annie as he didn’t want Helena to think he was staring at her legs. “Are you going to return so you can finish regrowing them?”

Helena sat up and placed her hands behind her so she could lean on them a bit. “I was told to wait two years before going back for the rest of the rebuild, which means I likely won’t get back until late June, 2015. Until then—” She jabbed the thumb in Coraline’s direction. “I’ll be using these prosthetics this as soon as the old doc there is finished getting all calibration information set her computers.”

“And if something goes wrong with one of these while you’re here, I’d have a hell of a time fixing it if I didn’t have an original set of parameters to work from.” Coraline deactivated the machine she was using to gather information from Helena’s prosthetic. “And now that I’ve got them both registered, get this one back on so that you can get back to doing whatever it is evil sorceresses like you do your day off.”

“I was planning to nip in town and pick up some eye of newt. I’ve some curses I have to cast on some lesbian hating morons. I may even pick up a cauldron as well.” She winked that the kids before smiling at Coraline. “Don’t tell Erywin I used the C Word.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She reattached the prosthetic and activated the sealing enchantment. “There you go. Now, I have to look after my next patient. You shouldn’t have any problems dressing.”

Helena slid off the bed and stood without problem. “I can take it from here.” She nodded that Annie and Kerry. “See you two later.”

Annie nodded. “Take care, Helena.”

It’s funny to see Helena tell the kids not to tell her SO that she said cauldron because she doesn’t want to face her wrath. You can almost see Erywin giving Helena the stink eyes and saying, “You said you were going to buy a cauldron? You think that’s funny?” That’s one witch who doesn’t like stereotyping.

Finally we can get to the kids–

“Okay, you two. Down here.” Coraline let them to the first day on the right after stepping out of the lift area—which just happened to be Bay #1. As soon as everyone was inside she sealed the privacy curtain. “Speaking of getting calibrations…” She nodded toward Kerry. “I want to get a baseline reading off of you—and you too, Annie. We’re gonna do that now.”

Though Kerry had expected Coraline wanted to see both of them concerning his transition, he’d hold the wouldn’t be any medical processes involved. “We did a baseline exam before I left for the summer. Why do you need to do another?”

“Because things have changed since we did that last baseline—like, you didn’t transition though your body has continued to develop.” Coraline put on the stern appearance she reserved for patients who seemed unwilling to cooperate. “Since you are still you, I want to get a new baseline so I can compared both to the old one and one we’ll take at the time of your transition.”

Kerry understood this was going to be done regardless of how much complaining he did. “Okay. What we have to do?”

Coraline turned to Annie. “Do you have a cami under your shirt?”

She shook her head. “Just a bra.”

“Right.” Coraline pointed across the aisle. “There’s a cami laying on the bed. Remove your top and bra and come back with the cami on.”

As Annie hurried across the aisle Coraline turned back to Kerry. “Okay, young man. Remove that shirt, get on the bed, and lay on your back.”

Gotta love that bedside: “Since you are still you I want to see how you look before you aren’t you.” Nowhere else are you going to have to deal with this when you see your doctor.

“Just wait until you aren’t you but you really are you, only just a different you!”

Yeah, never a dull moments at Salem Witch Hospital General. Also, why doesn’t Coraline walk around with a stethoscope around her neck? Maybe because she doesn’t need to remind anyone she’s a doctor?

Tomorrow we see a little more of my mad research skills at work and discover something interesting about the kids…

2 thoughts on “Setting the Baseline: Growing Over the Summer”

Just wondering……. can doctor witches cure cancer ? They can regrow body parts, so I’m sure they can take out cancer, as well. Of course curing cancer cannot be done on normal people…….millions of sick people will want to be cured too.

Check the Past by Date

It’s Monday, the last of September, and things are progressing as well as one may assume. My Sunday was restful, as in I had a long afternoon nap, watched The Big Short, and edited video for my upcoming freshie practice blog post, which may pop out tomorrow so I can write a bit more in […]